"Does he have a wife?" the robot asked. "If so, perhaps you could arrange to make her your mistress, while he has Mrs. Hermes."
"I'm not interested in anyone else. Only Lotta."
"You found that Library girl exciting. Even though she threatened you." The robot's tone was all-knowing. "_We want the Anarch before you run into her again_. I, at remote, have conferred by phone with His Mightiness Ray Roberts; I am instructed to obtain custody tonight. I am to stay with you rather than meeting His Mightiness."
Sebastian said, "You think I'm that vulnerable to Ann Fisher?"
"His Mightiness thinks so."
I wouldn't be surprised, Sebastian thought unhappily, if His Mightiness were right.
At his conapt he switched on the phone relay; Bob Lindy's call-back to the vitarium would be switched here. All he had to do was wait. Meanwhile he prepared a quantity of prime sogum from his reserve, extra-special stock, imbibed it in an effort to raise both his physical energy-level and his morale.
"A weird custom," the robot said, observing him. "Before the Hobart Phase you would never have performed such an act before the eyes of another."
"You're only a robot," he said.
"But a human operator perceives through my sensory apparatus."
The vidphone rang. So soon? he thought, glancing at his watch. "Goodbye," he said tensely into the receiver.
On the screen the image formed. It was not Bob Lindy; he faced the negotiator for the interested Rome party, Tony Giacometti. "We followed you to your conapt," Giacometti said. "Hermes, you are deeply in spiritual debt to us; if it hadn't been for our stake-out, Miss Fisher would have blown up the Anarch with her bomb."
"I realize that," he said.
"In addition," Giacometti continued, "you would not have known the contents of the two phone calls she made from your vitarium. So we may have saved your wife's life and possibly yours."
He repeated, "I realize that." The Rome buyer had him. "What do you want me to do?" he said.
"We want the Anarch. We know he's with your technician, Bob Lindy. When Lindy got in touch with you we put a trace on the call; we know where he and the Anarch are. If we wanted to take the Anarch forcibly we could do that, but that's not the approach we traditionally favor. This purchase must be accomplished on an aboveboard ethical basis; Rome is not the People's Topical Library nor the Uditi--we do not, under any circumstances, operate as they do. You understand?"
"Yes." He nodded.
Giacometti said, "Morally, therefore, you are obliged to make your sale to us, rather than to Carl Gantrix. May we send our buyer to your conapt to negotiate the transfer? We can be there in ten minutes."
"Your method of operation," he conceded, "is effective." What else could he do? Giacometti was right. "Send your buyer over," he said, and hung up.
The robot Carl Junior had observed the conversation and had heard his end. But, oddly, it did not appear perturbed.
"Your Anarch," Sebastian said to it, "would be dead, now. If they hadn't--"
"What you're forgetting," the robot said patiently, as if explaining to a naive child, "that the disposition of the Anarch depends on his own preference. That is the binding moral obligation. Your solution will be this: suspend the negotiations until your technician phones in, and then inquire of the Anarch as to whom he wishes to be sold." It concluded confidently, "We are certain that it will be ourselves."
"Giacometti may not agree," Sebastian said.
The robot said, "The decision is not his. All right; the Rome people have placed this on an ethical basis; we are delighted. However, our ethical basis is superior to theirs." It beamed.
Religion, Sebastian thought wearily. More ins and outs, more angles, than ordinary commerce. The casuistry had already gone beyond him; he gave up. "I'll let you explain it to Giacometti when his buyer arrives," he said. And imbibed, to fortify himself, an additional ten ounces of sogum.
"The Rome party," the robot said, "has had centuries more experience than we. Their buyer will be clever. I entreat you to avoid various diverse pitfalls which he may dig for you, as the expression goes."
"You talk to him," Sebastian said wearily. "When he gets here. Explain to him what you spelled out to me."
"Gladly."
"You feel capable of out-arguing him?"
The robot said, "God is on our side."
"Is that what you're going to tell him?"
Pondering, the robot decided, "He would cite apostolic succession. Free will, I believe, is the best argument. Civil law regards an old-born individual as the chattel of the vitarium which revives it. This however is not in accord with theological considerations; a human being cannot be owned, old-born or otherwise, since both possess a soul. I will therefore first establish the fact that the old-born Anarch has a soul, which the Rome buyer will admit, and then deduce from that premise that only the Anarch can dispose of himself, which is our position." Again it pondered. For quite some time. "His Mightiness, Mr. Roberts," it declared at last, "agrees with this line of reasoning. I am in touch with him. If the Rome buyer can counter it-- which is unlikely--then Mr. Roberts himself, rather than I, Carl Gantrix, will operate Carl Junior; it will become Ray Junior. You can now see that we were prepared for this development from the beginning; for this, His Mightiness, Mr. Roberts, has traveled to the West Coast. He will not return to the F.N.M. empty-handed."
"I wonder what Ann Fisher is doing," Sebastian said, brooding.
"The Library is no longer a factor. The conflict as to who is the proper buyer has been reduced to two principals: ourselves and Rome."
"She won't give up." For her it would be impossible. He walked to the window of his living room, gazed out on the dark street below. Often, he and Lotta had done this; every object in the conapt reminded him of her, every object and every spot.
A knock sounded at the living room door.
"Let him in," Sebastian said to the robot. He seated himself, picked up a cigaret butt from the ashtray, lit it, and prepared to endure the imminent debate.
"Goodbye, Mr. Hermes," Anthony Giacometti said, entering; he had come himself... for the same reasons which had prompted Carl Gantrix to bring in _his_ principal. "Goodbye, Gantrix," he said sourly to the robot.
"Mr. Hermes," the robot declared, "has asked me to inform you of the position he takes. He is tired and very worried about his wife--so he would rather not attempt to discuss this matter himself."
To Sebastian, and not to the robot, Giacometti said, "What does it mean? We came to an agreement on the phone."
"Since then," the robot said, "I have informed him that only the Anarch can promise delivery."
"Scott versus Tyler," Giacometti said. "Two years ago, the Superior Court of Contra Costa County. Judge Winslow presiding. The option of disposal of an old-born belongs to the owner of the reviving vitarium, not to his salesman, not to the old-born himself, not to--"
"We have here, however," the robot interrupted, "a spiritual matter. Not a juridical one. The civil law regarding old-borns is two hundred years out of date. Rome--yourselves--recognizes an old-born as possessing a soul; this is proved by the rite of Supreme Unction conferred when an old-born is severely injured or--"
"The vitarium does not dispose of a soul; it disposes of the soul's possessor: its body."
"Negative," the robot disagreed. "A deader, before the soul reenters it and reanimates it, cannot be dug up by a vitarium. When it is only a body, a corpse of flesh, the vitarium cannot sell or--"
"The Anarch," Giacometti said, "was illegally dug up before returning to life. The Flask of Hermes Vitarium committed a crime. Under civil law, the Flask of Hermes Vitarium does not in fact own the Anarch. Johnson versus Scruggs, the California Supreme Court, last year."